social.rebellion.global is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The Extinction Rebellion Mastodon, for use by XR Groups around the world.

Administered by:

Server stats:

43
active users

1/ Degrowth ~Tuesday~ /Thursday Tea Break: Chapter 2 🌱

💥 The economic growth system is sustained only by theft.

Scientist Rebellion

2/ Capitalism needs not only profit, but exponentially growing profit.

So...dig dig dig!

Extraction and accumulation of natural resources is the only way. It must take more from life than it gives back.

Capitalism requires energy to turn natural resources into waste: Energy = Resources = Labour

3/ Of course, there’s nothing naturally cheap about labour & nature. On the contrary, they’re actively cheapened.

European capitalists came up with this dualism that casts humans as subjects with mind and agency, & nature as an object to be exploited and controlled for human ends.

4/ Such a system breeds inequalities and ecological breakdown.

Claim of capitalistic growth and material ‘progress’: improving everyday life for millions.

Reality: the majority is barely keeping their heads above water.
(We will refer you to a previous post on GDP...)

In most societies, there are strong inequalities, colonial legacies,
racism, to this day.

5/ ❗Dispossession, enslavement and exploitation are legitimized by shunting nonhuman beings, Black and Indigenous people, and most women as not-quite-fully-human.

6/ ➡️ Colonialism is a precondition, as well as a consequence of the need for energy of the capitalist system. The North (Minority World) appropriates this energy and the South (Majority World) pays the highest price.

7/ ⚠️ For degrowth, the problem is not the behaviour of individual “consumers” but rather the structure and logic of the underlying economic system: capitalism.

8/ ✊ THIS IS A SYSTEM THAT LEAVES THE MAJORITY WITHOUT SATISFACTION OF BASIC NEEDS.

We need a restructuring of the system away from profit to the needs of all people

9/ ‼️ We do not want more extractivism to lose ourselves...We want our basic needs satisfied, which the capitalist system fails to do time and time again.

(See our last image for references.)

@ScientistRebellion agree! The only war I want is the class war

@ScientistRebellion if capitalism is what concerns you, I suggest you keep these conferences in those other countries you might prefer: some middle eastern monarchy (but I personally prefer Islamic Republics), in China (perhaps like minded Myanmar! why not?), Russia (I think they're willing to hear from you, just be careful to close the windows, and prefer ground floors), a Bolivarian Republic of your choice... that's the free world we like! 🤭

@ScientistRebellion I geuss you mean that BRICS aka The Global South is the North, a majority either by population and GDP, or maybe, this is just a transitional period of time to get refunded of western (northern?) colonialism, after which they (the BRICS) will hand over capitalist practices, and restore the Paradise on Earth that they used to run before we (naughty north-westerners) came to disturb their beautiful harmony, their equal societies, their peaceful empires... right? 🤭

@ScientistRebellion let's recall for a second the chinese way of capitalism: overproduction capacity, dumping and kill the market in the rest of the world. sounds better, right? 🤭🇨🇳

@ScientistRebellion right. So do workers. 2% increase a year is -very slow- exponential growth, too. I think the problem is we don’t use #capitalism anymore. Now we are at the point where we transition to #oligarchy, the final defunct form of capitalism. To make capitalism work for the good of a society, you must tax the rich, break oligarchy and prevent casinos (transaction tax for shares is a way to do that)

@ScientistRebellion I heard "dig dig dig" is the motto in the chinese mines across Africa 🤭 recently russians joined them... those beautiful gold mines in Sudan: we just needed a civil war to put our hands on it 🇷🇺